lefield. This detachment
was reported at first to be about 500, but Major Rimington, who
reconnoitred close up to it, saw other Boers advancing westwards to
support it, and it is not improbable that the whole of van der Merwe's
commando may have ridden out from Ramdam in the course of the morning.
Fortunately, however, the Boers were not at this period of the war
disposed to attack mounted troops in the open plain; the
demonstration, therefore, of Rimington's Guides and the Lancers'
squadrons sufficed to chain them to the kopje.

[Sidenote: Gough fails to stop Boers.]

As soon as the main attack had succeeded, Gough moved northward and
sighted the Boer laager, which had been observed at Enslin the
previous night, now retiring north-east along the road to Jacobsdal.
The escort appeared, however, to be too strong to be charged. Urgent
requests for guns were therefore sent back to Headquarters and
ultimately the 18th battery, which had reached the bivouac at Enslin,
was sent out to join Gough, but the horses were too exhausted for
rapid movement and the guns only arrived in time to fire a dozen
rounds at the last Boer wagons, which were now 5,000 yards away.[166]

[Footnote 166: This battery fired in all 482 rounds during
the action.]

[Sidenote: Want of cavalry and horse artillery make Belmont and
Graspan indecisive.]

Yet at Graspan, as at Belmont, the open plains across which the enemy
was compelled to retire after his defeat were singularly favourable to
cavalry action and, had a satisfactory mounted brigade with a horse
artillery battery been available, the Boers could not have effected
their escape without suffering very heavy losses. Not only were the
mounted troops at Lord Methuen's disposal insufficient numerically,
but their horses were already worn out by the heavy reconnaissance
duty, which had of necessity been carried out by them day after day
without relief, under the adverse conditions of a sandy soil, great
heat, and a scarcity of water. The results of this deficiency in
mounted men were far-reaching. Not only did the enemy avoid paying the
material penalties of successive failures on the battlefield, but his
_moral_ was stiffened by these demonstrations of the immunity from
disaster conferred by his superior mobility.

[Sidenote: Losses at Graspan, Nov. 25th.]

The casualties suffered by the 1st division on this day amounted to 3
officers and 15 men killed, 6 officers and 137 me